How do my solar generation stats compare? Discussion.

Great to see your first solar stats coming in, @Jequinlan!

Wonder if our other solar panel members might be around to shed some (sun)light on how they compare? 🌞

@EverythingNeedsAUserName, @PeterR1947, @malc_smith, @JoeC, @Simonsalad, @sylm_2000?

Great pun @Jess_OVO  :)

@Jess_OVO If you look on my webpage http://www.rogers-family.me.uk/ then click on the link “Solar PV Panels” you can then see “The output from our system (known as SSE's best) can be viewed here at PVOutput.org”  Click on the “here” and you can see my output.  So far, since February 2011 I have generated 27.76MW

Hi, I too am new to solar but I have a 12Kw system so looking at your 3.6Kw system you appear to have generated 444.4kWh in 30 days, which would average 14.81kWh/day (444.4/30) which is 4.11kWh/kW of solar PV (14.81/3.6). I don’t yet have a full month of data since I have only had my system for 14 days but to give you a like for like comparison I have generated 740.9kWh which would average 52.92kWh/day giving a like for like generation of 4.41kWh/kW of solar PV. So it looks like we are not far off each other! Hope that helps and its nice to know for my own piece of mind. By the way I’m in NorthWest England and it has been quite sunny over the past 10 days. 

Thanks @Sean T and welcome to solar! 

That's a mighty big system you have. I am just south of London so that kind of real estate to even have a roof that size is well beyond my dreams (we are talking a £4m+ house to cope with that!)

It does indeed look similar in efficiency and has been quite cloudy here last few days.

Hi Jequinlan, yes it is quite a space, 34 panels in total but I have an agricultural barn about 30 meters away from my house so the panels are on a SSE facing roof and feed down to 2 Tesla Powerwalls and 2 Solis 6kW inverters in the barn, which then feed back down a 30m cable to the house. Up to now seems to be working very well. I use about 50kWh/day and haven’t had to buy any electricity from the grid for 6 days out of the 14 days I have had the solar, so a good start to my payback time! That includes using a 12kW Vailant ASHP and an everhot cooker that is on all the time. Over the past 7 days I have also exported 105kWh to the grid so time to invest in an EV! 

Fantastic. What is an everhot oven? I use 30kwh often daily and am just covering my supply at the moment.  I cannot get an ASHP as the trail OVO tried to get me on proved it just wasnt going to happen so i now have sadly a much more effiicent new vailent gas boiler, i am considering swapping hot water tank with a sunamp though.

My roof has 0m left on it so no room for solar expansion and local planning means i cannot get a wind turbine, even a small one. I could later consider solar on north facing mounted in reverse but not convinced yet.

Hi Jequinla, an Everhot Cooker is very similar to an electric AGA, same design but the electrical circuits are much more efficient providing a trickle of current to keep the ovens and hot plates heated. Due to the clever circuitry it simply plugs in with a single 13A plug but it has 1 x 200*C oven 1 x 250*C oven (temperature adjustable), 1 x 100*C oven/warmer, grill, boiling plate and a simmer plate. Uses about 100kWh/week but also acts as a room heater in the kitchen. Highly recommended, especially if you have some surplus solar! 

Hey. 

So I have a 6kwp array, fitted about 6 weeks ago, but it's split into 3. So it's basically 2kwp facing NE, 2kwp SE and 2kwp SW.

The NE panels are obviously going to generate significantly less than the others, and I would never hit the 6kw maximum, so I've got a 5kw inverter. (And 1 x 5.8kwh storage battery)

Attached is my generation for April (so the previous 23 days), April yield so far is 450kwh. Hopefully I'm doing better than a typical 4kwp system, but not expecting to be as good as a "normal" 6kwp system.

We get a great spread of generation throughout the day which I'm super pleased with so far.

Hi, good idea to split you array into 3 sections to make the best of your day and manage to generate 3.91kWh/kW of solar pv. 

Simonsalad wrote:

Hey. 

So I have a 6kwp array, fitted about 6 weeks ago, but it's split into 3. So it's basically 2kwp facing NE, 2kwp SE and 2kwp SW.

The NE panels are obviously going to generate significantly less than the others, and I would never hit the 6kw maximum, so I've got a 5kw inverter. (And 1 x 5.8kwh storage battery)

Attached is my generation for April (so the previous 23 days), April yield so far is 450kwh. Hopefully I'm doing better than a typical 4kwp system, but not expecting to be as good as a "normal" 6kwp system.

We get a great spread of generation throughout the day which I'm super pleased with so far.

 

That looks a very efficient system. Which controller manufacturer did you go for?

Hey, it's a Solax hybrid inverter and Triple Power battery.

Looks good. I have a smaller system and maybe not as efficient but I am still playing with controls at present. 
3.75kW solar PV (split into 2 arrays , facing West and East). LuxPower inverter system and 8kW PylonTech Battery bank. 
April so far
 

Great to see a visual of how you’re storing, using and exporting all that solar energy you’ve been generating, @BPLightlog, @Sean T and @Simonsalad.

Were you tempted to add a battery to your new solar set-up, @Jequinlan and use as much of your energy in-house?

@Jess_OVO i added a 10.2kwh battery,  but , when my v2g charger works again (and attending the show and speaking to indra they need to remove the matte and install an earth rod as this apparently has been the reasons for my many failures they think) i should have ample storage.

Great to hear you managed to do some V2G trouble-shooting at Fully Charged Live, @Jequinlan.

Of course - I forgot you’ve already got some energy-storage on wheels once the charger issues are sorted. Wonder if this might be an alternative option for you, @M.isterW? 

Now that the V2G charger is swapped out and working, @Jequinlan - what’s the verdict on how it works with your solar and storage? 

Well one thing for sure @Tim_OVO is i have had issues with the apps for my solar not working well when the v2g is feeding out. Until i see rebate in a month or so, its really going to be hard to tell. Speaking of rebates , when are we getting update info... we are due new terms info asap.

love to share my stats here, but I'm having issues with my Solis data logger (RF Gateway). The connection between the inverter and the Gateway is fine, but the Gateway is constantly losing connection with Solis Cloud, so I'm not getting all my data.  It seemed to go wrong after swapping routers (has a wired connection with the router and wireless with the inverter). I've tried resetting the Gateway and DHCP seems to be ok, so haven't tried assigning an IP (Plusnet One Hub router).

Solis support have been very slow to respond to my ticket and I'm now in the process of getting a warranty return.

Has anyone else had any luck with Solis data logger?

Some stats on my system are below

14x380 JA panels

SSW facing roof

3.6 kw Solis inverter

Mitsubishi Outlander EV (8kwh usable battery needs charging 2-3 times per day)

Solar iBoost to HW tank

The inverter seems to respond very quickly to sunlight, I guess because there's so much capacity.

It's annoying that you can't go over 3.6 kw if you are grid tied. I'm considering adding a 5kw inverter to use to charge an Ioniq 5 (when I can get one) and use the V2L capability to charge the other car (or the house).  Anyone else managed to get their hands on an Ioniq 5?

Some more stats (usage)

That looks like a good saving y-o-y @amackayj. I guess that’s with the solar PV help?

sorry but I can’t help with the Solis inverter. I have an couple of old Efinity inverters (installed early 2009) and have recently added battery storage. 
We have a LuxPower controller added to monitor the solar generation and manage the battery system. They have an app (and web site) to log and monitor data so you get a full picture of solar, battery, consumption and draw from the grid. 

• @BPLightlog: how are you? Can I ask a few questions on your system/graphs please?
• What is your set-up, which battery (1 or 2 and type) and what are its specs?
• How quick can your grid/battery/solar react to appliances using energy?
• I can’t quite see from your graphs whether your battery can alone, when charged sufficiently, deal with usage of 3000W to 3500W?
   

Hi @ogeitenhoeve. 
we have a 3.75kw PV array split over 2 facings to give a spread of Solar through the day. 
this feeds into a LuxPower control system which also has 2 battery banks connected with 9.6kW of storage. The batteries are modular PylonTech US2000’s. 
The batteries can deliver just over 3kW at peak and switch within a few seconds but I do not get an immediate switch over as the system balances the various inputs and possible exports to the grid also. 
Hope this helps. 
 

• @BPLightlog: useful.

  

  
  Have US3000 with 3.6Kwh, nominal (dis)charge 37A at 50V and max at 74. However, we cannot get more wattage than 37x50=1750 (have seen 1916W charging). What I cannot understand is why setting cannot be set at <=60W so
  that we can run a kettle on battery? Nominal is nominal not maximal.
• Your US2000 has 25A nominal at 50V, so 1250W, so two at 2500W (but  you can reach 3000W).  
• Our switching takes 5min so we have loads of instances were we use the grid while the battery could and should take it. How can one adjust the programming of this imo inappropriate balancing? See the graph attached. LuxPower one. See how grid kicks in just after 12:00 without need and the 3rd grid peak the  big one down at ~15:30. Thanks.

@ogeitenhoeve 

there are several others with more knowledge than I have on this - prompt … @Blastoise186 ?

But as far as I understand it, the max output is controlled by the inverter controller rather than battery capacity. You also need to remember that the app is not real time and only updates every few minutes so that might explain your apparent 5 min delay to switching. 

Our batteries by the way are 4x which might explain the 3kW.

Just fyi, there is a way to link directly to the Wi-Fi of the system controller so that you can check the real time switching but you will need the extra details of your module (Wi-Fi channel name and connection).